Plus 5 Things to Do When Your Flight is Canceled, This Week in Invention History, Hubble Turns 18, This Week in Invention Disputes and MORE.

Last year at this time, the national average for regular unleaded was $2.86 per gallon. Now it’s $3.53 — and rising daily.

“A national average approaching $4 a gallon should not be ruled out by consumers later this year,” an AAA rep tells CNN.com, saying Americans should expect the price to increase another 25 cents over the next month and continue to climb over the summer months.

AAA has seen that when gas prices hit “exorbitant levels,” Americans change their vacation plans, traveling closer to home, staying at less-expensive hotels and eating at fast-food restaurants rather than fancier dine-in restaurants.

Are you, dear readers, changing your vacation plans because of the gas prices?

5 Things to Do When Your Flight is Canceled
For these and more, check out Chuck Cohen’s top-10 list at The Christian Science Monitor:

5) Check the punctuation on your luggage tag.
4) Consider reading Proust.
3) Dismiss any thought of reading Proust.
2) Wonder why you can’t get French toast in France.
1) Watch your cell-phone battery die.

This Week in Invention History
An alarm rang in Chicago on April 21, 1878, and a firefighter named George Reid quickly slid down a pole that happened to be nearby rather than run down two flights of stairs. Capt. David B. Kenyon saw it happen, and thus was born the firefighter sliding pole.

Kenyon convinced the Department Chief to make the necessary hole in the building and install the pole, after agreeing to pay for any necessary maintenance. Engine Company 21 crafted a pole from Georgia pine beam by shaving and sanding it into a 3-inch diameter pole, which was then given several coats of varnish and a coat of paraffin.

After being the target of many jokes, people realized Company 21 was usually the first company to arrive when called. The Chief ordered the poles to be installed in all Chicago fire stations.

Following its success, Boston improved the idea in 1880 with a fire pole made of shiny, slippery brass.

(via Wired)

Hubble Turns 18
Eighteen years ago, the Hubble Telescope was launched into space by Space Shuttle Discovery.

Yesterday, NASA released 59 new high-resolution images of galaxies colliding across the universe to mark the Hubble Space Telescope’ 18th birthday.

Below, AM0500-620 consists of a spiral galaxy seen nearly face-on and partially back-lit by a smaller galaxy. Previously classified as an elliptical galaxy, Hubble has revealed the background galaxy’s spiral shape, with its dusty arms clustered around bright knots of stars. AM0500-620 is 350 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Dorado, the Swordfish.

Credit: NASA, ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and W. Keel (University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa)

This Week in Invention Disputes
A New York woman is taking on Victoria’s Secret, claiming the lingerie giant stole her idea for a strapless convertible bra. The single mother claims she designed and patented what the company now bills as the 100-way bra.

Newsday reports:

She worked on a removable strap design and patented the invention in 2004 with hopes of making some money to help her raise her children on her own.

The woman says the company was well aware of her patent as she e-mailed a mock-up of the bra she made along with pictures of models wearing prototypes, then set up a meeting with Victoria’s Secret to discuss it. She says the company canceled the meeting as she was driving into Manhattan from her home on Long Island.

A year later, she saw a similar bra in one of the company’s stores.

Sea Organ
In 2005, Nikola Basic designed the Sea Organ. Located in Croatia, the Sea Organ is a series of large marble steps under which hide 35 tuned tubes beneath water.

When the ocean waters move back and forth, air is pushed through the tubes, and musical sounds are sent up through holes in the steps.

There is a similar one in San Francisco, Calif., as well as in Blackpool, UK.

Too cool…

Here’s another video of the architectural object/experimental musical instrument:

Cheers.